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Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble
An instant New York Times bestseller, Dan Lyons' "hysterical" (Recode) memoir, hailed by the Los Angeles Times as "the best book about Silicon Valley," takes readers inside the maddening world of fad-chasing venture capitalists, sales bros, social climbers, and sociopaths at today's tech startups. For twenty-five years Dan Lyons was a magazine writer at the top of his profession--until one Friday morning when he received a phone Poof. His job no longer existed. "I think they just want to hire younger people," his boss at Newsweek told him. Fifty years old and with a wife and two young kids, Dan was, in a word, screwed. Then an idea hit. Dan had long reported on Silicon Valley and the tech explosion. Why not join it? HubSpot, a Boston start-up, was flush with $100 million in venture capital. They offered Dan a pile of stock options for the vague role of "marketing fellow." What could go wrong? HubSpotters were true They were making the world a better place ... by selling email spam. The office vibe was frat house meets cult The party began at four thirty on Friday and lasted well into the night; "shower pods" became hook-up dens; a push-up club met at noon in the lobby, while nearby, in the "content factory," Nerf gun fights raged. Groups went on "walking meetings," and Dan's absentee boss sent cryptic emails about employees who had "graduated" ( been fired). In the middle of all this was Dan, exactly twice the age of the average HubSpot employee, and literally old enough to be the father of most of his co-workers, sitting at his desk on his bouncy-ball "chair."
256 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 5, 2016
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15981 people want to read
About the author
Dan Lyons
7 books92 followersI grew up in Massachusetts, went to University of Michigan for an MFA in Creative Writing. That's where I started writing seriously. My first book was a collection of short stories, followed by two novels. Then I switched to non-fiction. I've been a journalist for most of my career. My wife and I have two teenage kids and we live in the suburbs of Boston.
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April 21, 2016
At the height of his Fake Steve Jobs fame, Dan Lyons gave a talk at Google’s Mountain View campus. I was unable to go due to travel or more likely some stupid meeting, but several friends went. One of them was excited to report that Mr. Lyons was just like me — even down to the acne scars all over our necks.
While I’m a fan of Mr. Lyons and I really enjoyed the book, I’m not sure how I feel about him taking the job at Hubspot in the first place. If you are taking a job with a purposely vague title like “marketing fellow” — and oh, how the tech industry loves to lift titles from other industries like that — then it’s reasonable to assume that flexibility will be required in the responsibilities of that role.
So this was “not a culture fit” and not in the age discrimination way (though there was plenty of that) if someone takes a vaguely defined role and then essentially complains about the lack of structure while asking permission to do stuff. Perhaps this came from working in more structured newsrooms? I have no idea because my idea of what newsrooms are like comes from Mencken’s Newspaper Days and the Daily Bugle in Spiderman comics.
Having gotten that unpleasantness out of the way, I still greatly admire the little tech carpetbagger for his determination to leave no bridge unburned and for his sharp observational skills. I was so captivated by the book that I read it straight through in one sitting. I started a list of all the things that I felt Mr. Lyons got right about startup culture along with my own thoughts:
* Being “managed out”: I’ve only seen it happen to other people (natch), but the part with Trotsky is about as good of a description of being managed out as you are going to read.
* Early employee/Friend-of-CEO effect: The book perfectly captures the way that early employees (and they are loaded up with stock, so when the company goes public they will make oh so much more than you will) can hunker in to the company and make life miserable for everyone else.
* Boiler room approach to tech: Basically anything that can’t be automated (outbound calling, approving ads or websites, turning pages in a book) at tech companies are done with rooms full of recent grads. The bottom 5-10% are culled every so often and replacements are brought in. There are buildings full of these people in and around Mountain View.
* BS creation myths for start ups: It has always annoyed me how most startups need a creation myth. YouTube has this story about the founders being at a dinner party and wanting to share videos that they made blah blah blah… But you can go on archive.org and see very clearly that it was set up to be a dating site, sort of a video Hot Or Not. I am certainly guilty of repeating these false narratives at countless sales calls though.
* Age discrimination: I was being called “old man” and similar even back when I joined Google at 35. I even remember in my early 30s the son of the CEO where I worked scrunched up his face and asked me, “What are you? Like 40?” I’m still not sure what he meant by that. I still get a comment every few weeks or so that I’m not crazy about, so I close my laptop and stop working for the day in response. I don’t think my age affects my ability to get hired because I’ve always felt smarter and more employable then just about everyone around me. I went to a conference a few weeks ago and half a dozen companies were interested in hiring me (though I’m very happy where I am now thankyouverymuch).
* Can’t step in the same river twice: Mr. Lyons paints this as a bad thing, but he captures the chaos and change at a fast growing start up. It means there will be wasted effort, which isn’t great, but it also creates great opportunities. And when I feel like quitting a start up job I remind myself (or someone else does) that everything will change in about 3 months anyway, so I put a tickler in my calendar to reconsider until then.
* The weird linking of personal and work life: This has only gotten worse over the past decade or so I have noticed. The way he almost gets fired for a FB joke is worse than anything I’ve seen, but I don’t doubt it. It was really common for co-workers to date early in my career, but now I know of apartment buildings where the majority of the apartments are taken by people from one company. The norm today seems to be for co-workers to live and play together in a huddle like puppies. This is something obviously not possible for middle aged workers, except maybe as the premise of a sitcom.
* Discrimination against funny people: In Silicon Valley genuine humor is always frowned upon and turned against you, mainly because humor always has an element of truth to it and shows a clarity of perception, two things that are never tolerated in tech. In almost every review I have had, my sense of humor has shown up in the “negative” or “needs work” column, even when managers are friends. So if your humor idols are Wilde, Thurber, Benchley, Mencken, Lynde think twice before saying anything and don’t drink too much at company events. If you think Friends and Big Bang Theory are hilarious, you will go far. They may even put you on the April Fools Day joke committee.
* VC, industry-level view: The more the book zooms out, the more it becomes truly great. This is where Reporter Lyons takes over from Tech Carpetbagger Lyons and I learn a whole bunch of stuff about how this current boom is being funded and how the wealth is being transferred. These parts are worth the price of the book alone.
* BS review methodology: Google used to do this too. They had this big long Drake equation thingie where they plugged in your performance, your department’s performance, Google’s performance, etc. The upshot every year was (1) you are average, (2) the company is spectacular, (3) here is a bunch of money, (4) shut up and go eat some free food. It felt like a sad Christmas each time. It always came out to just over my expected bonus anyway, so I never understood the psychology of messing with my head.
* No one understanding pop culture references: This always trips me up, being a generation ahead of most co-workers. There was a time when a Caddyshack reference *always* got a laugh in sales situations. (Hey Lama, how about a little something for the effort?) I was talking about a recent vacation, and I mentioned that my Spalding Gray Swimming to Cambodia moment finally happened when Jethro Tull came on the radio in my bitchin’ Camaro. The conversation quickly ground to a halt. I realized it would take at least 20 minutes to unpack all of the dated cultural references I made, so I softly said “never mind” and saved it for people closer to my own age. I try to stick to Classical Greek and Roman references because they are the foundation of our culture and it’s not my fault if people don’t get them. You’d be surprised how often you can work in a reference to the Thirty Tyrants or Xenophon’s Anabasis.
* Asymmetric loyalty mores: My career spans three recessions, so I’m always ready to bug out like a M*A*S*H unit. I don’t keep any more on my desk than I can fit in my backpack. I’ve seen layoffs blamed on everything from 9/11 to California’s Governor Davis. Everything except poor management.
* Open offices: The next logical step in the modern office is to have organ grinders walk around while monkeys jump on desks knocking things over. If I didn’t know better I’d think that our backs are exposed to emphasize that we workers are low-status primates.
What was missed or what I’d like to read in the sequel (I’m available to speak on deep background):
* McKinsey colonization. If Mr. Lyons had stuck around a few more years he would witness the stage where the ex-McKinsey and a few ex-Bain consultants come in to form a “biz ops” department and start rationalizing the business processes. I am usually long gone by then. This was dramatized in Office Space when the “Bobs” come in, except these Bobs are way smarter than me, way better educated than me, and super super evil. God help anyone who doesn’t fit neatly into one of their spreadsheets.
* People staying too long at companies: In my experience people stop learning useful skills around 5 years at a company unless they change positions or radically change what they are working on. After those 5 years, they just learn company politics (how to hire friends, how to fly 1st class, what VP to schmooze for what). So when someone leaves (or more likely is laid off) after 10 years they will expect to be paid for 10 years experience when they really only have 5 years of relevant experience.
* Push down of risk and upside: There was some mention of egregious rounds like Groupon’s last round, but a discussion of investor preference and conversions and cram downs would have been great too. Also I’m pretty sure that Mr. Lyons had to wait 6 months to sell his stock. This is the standard these days so that preferred stock has plenty of time to bail out first if necessary. The other trend is that companies go public at a way higher valuation these days, which reduces upside for rank and file employees. (Netscape went public at a valuation of $1B for example, barely a “unicorn.”) Not that there is no upside at all any more, just that the fabled stories from the MSFT and dot com era don’t necessarily apply. And the tax laws still suck, so I’m pretty sure Mr. Lyons was taxed as if it were cashing in a lottery ticket instead of collecting something he had earned over a period of a year and a half.
* Apology for the section on Bozos: Bozo is a the maiden name of my step-grandmother, and it happens to be a common Hungarian surname. Using it as a term of abuse is insulting to Hungarian-Americans. My step-great-grandmother was a very kind woman who also happened to receive a tremendous amount of crank phone calls. This is the kind of discrimination that we have had to face as long as I can remember.
Even though Baby Boomers are the people that said “Don’t trust anyone over 30” and pretty much invented age discrimination, it turns out that age discrimination is bad now that it’s happening to them.
And not only did the Baby Boomers not save the world, they didn’t even manage to save enough for retirement, so we need to un-age discriminate them into high paying jobs right away. We Gen Xers understand, so we’ll step aside for a decade or two.
As long as we get hilarious and insightful books out of the deal like this one, I guess it’s a fair trade off. Highly recommended, especially if you are working in tech or a tech adjacent company.
While I’m a fan of Mr. Lyons and I really enjoyed the book, I’m not sure how I feel about him taking the job at Hubspot in the first place. If you are taking a job with a purposely vague title like “marketing fellow” — and oh, how the tech industry loves to lift titles from other industries like that — then it’s reasonable to assume that flexibility will be required in the responsibilities of that role.
So this was “not a culture fit” and not in the age discrimination way (though there was plenty of that) if someone takes a vaguely defined role and then essentially complains about the lack of structure while asking permission to do stuff. Perhaps this came from working in more structured newsrooms? I have no idea because my idea of what newsrooms are like comes from Mencken’s Newspaper Days and the Daily Bugle in Spiderman comics.
Having gotten that unpleasantness out of the way, I still greatly admire the little tech carpetbagger for his determination to leave no bridge unburned and for his sharp observational skills. I was so captivated by the book that I read it straight through in one sitting. I started a list of all the things that I felt Mr. Lyons got right about startup culture along with my own thoughts:
* Being “managed out”: I’ve only seen it happen to other people (natch), but the part with Trotsky is about as good of a description of being managed out as you are going to read.
* Early employee/Friend-of-CEO effect: The book perfectly captures the way that early employees (and they are loaded up with stock, so when the company goes public they will make oh so much more than you will) can hunker in to the company and make life miserable for everyone else.
* Boiler room approach to tech: Basically anything that can’t be automated (outbound calling, approving ads or websites, turning pages in a book) at tech companies are done with rooms full of recent grads. The bottom 5-10% are culled every so often and replacements are brought in. There are buildings full of these people in and around Mountain View.
* BS creation myths for start ups: It has always annoyed me how most startups need a creation myth. YouTube has this story about the founders being at a dinner party and wanting to share videos that they made blah blah blah… But you can go on archive.org and see very clearly that it was set up to be a dating site, sort of a video Hot Or Not. I am certainly guilty of repeating these false narratives at countless sales calls though.
* Age discrimination: I was being called “old man” and similar even back when I joined Google at 35. I even remember in my early 30s the son of the CEO where I worked scrunched up his face and asked me, “What are you? Like 40?” I’m still not sure what he meant by that. I still get a comment every few weeks or so that I’m not crazy about, so I close my laptop and stop working for the day in response. I don’t think my age affects my ability to get hired because I’ve always felt smarter and more employable then just about everyone around me. I went to a conference a few weeks ago and half a dozen companies were interested in hiring me (though I’m very happy where I am now thankyouverymuch).
* Can’t step in the same river twice: Mr. Lyons paints this as a bad thing, but he captures the chaos and change at a fast growing start up. It means there will be wasted effort, which isn’t great, but it also creates great opportunities. And when I feel like quitting a start up job I remind myself (or someone else does) that everything will change in about 3 months anyway, so I put a tickler in my calendar to reconsider until then.
* The weird linking of personal and work life: This has only gotten worse over the past decade or so I have noticed. The way he almost gets fired for a FB joke is worse than anything I’ve seen, but I don’t doubt it. It was really common for co-workers to date early in my career, but now I know of apartment buildings where the majority of the apartments are taken by people from one company. The norm today seems to be for co-workers to live and play together in a huddle like puppies. This is something obviously not possible for middle aged workers, except maybe as the premise of a sitcom.
* Discrimination against funny people: In Silicon Valley genuine humor is always frowned upon and turned against you, mainly because humor always has an element of truth to it and shows a clarity of perception, two things that are never tolerated in tech. In almost every review I have had, my sense of humor has shown up in the “negative” or “needs work” column, even when managers are friends. So if your humor idols are Wilde, Thurber, Benchley, Mencken, Lynde think twice before saying anything and don’t drink too much at company events. If you think Friends and Big Bang Theory are hilarious, you will go far. They may even put you on the April Fools Day joke committee.
* VC, industry-level view: The more the book zooms out, the more it becomes truly great. This is where Reporter Lyons takes over from Tech Carpetbagger Lyons and I learn a whole bunch of stuff about how this current boom is being funded and how the wealth is being transferred. These parts are worth the price of the book alone.
* BS review methodology: Google used to do this too. They had this big long Drake equation thingie where they plugged in your performance, your department’s performance, Google’s performance, etc. The upshot every year was (1) you are average, (2) the company is spectacular, (3) here is a bunch of money, (4) shut up and go eat some free food. It felt like a sad Christmas each time. It always came out to just over my expected bonus anyway, so I never understood the psychology of messing with my head.
* No one understanding pop culture references: This always trips me up, being a generation ahead of most co-workers. There was a time when a Caddyshack reference *always* got a laugh in sales situations. (Hey Lama, how about a little something for the effort?) I was talking about a recent vacation, and I mentioned that my Spalding Gray Swimming to Cambodia moment finally happened when Jethro Tull came on the radio in my bitchin’ Camaro. The conversation quickly ground to a halt. I realized it would take at least 20 minutes to unpack all of the dated cultural references I made, so I softly said “never mind” and saved it for people closer to my own age. I try to stick to Classical Greek and Roman references because they are the foundation of our culture and it’s not my fault if people don’t get them. You’d be surprised how often you can work in a reference to the Thirty Tyrants or Xenophon’s Anabasis.
* Asymmetric loyalty mores: My career spans three recessions, so I’m always ready to bug out like a M*A*S*H unit. I don’t keep any more on my desk than I can fit in my backpack. I’ve seen layoffs blamed on everything from 9/11 to California’s Governor Davis. Everything except poor management.
* Open offices: The next logical step in the modern office is to have organ grinders walk around while monkeys jump on desks knocking things over. If I didn’t know better I’d think that our backs are exposed to emphasize that we workers are low-status primates.
What was missed or what I’d like to read in the sequel (I’m available to speak on deep background):
* McKinsey colonization. If Mr. Lyons had stuck around a few more years he would witness the stage where the ex-McKinsey and a few ex-Bain consultants come in to form a “biz ops” department and start rationalizing the business processes. I am usually long gone by then. This was dramatized in Office Space when the “Bobs” come in, except these Bobs are way smarter than me, way better educated than me, and super super evil. God help anyone who doesn’t fit neatly into one of their spreadsheets.
* People staying too long at companies: In my experience people stop learning useful skills around 5 years at a company unless they change positions or radically change what they are working on. After those 5 years, they just learn company politics (how to hire friends, how to fly 1st class, what VP to schmooze for what). So when someone leaves (or more likely is laid off) after 10 years they will expect to be paid for 10 years experience when they really only have 5 years of relevant experience.
* Push down of risk and upside: There was some mention of egregious rounds like Groupon’s last round, but a discussion of investor preference and conversions and cram downs would have been great too. Also I’m pretty sure that Mr. Lyons had to wait 6 months to sell his stock. This is the standard these days so that preferred stock has plenty of time to bail out first if necessary. The other trend is that companies go public at a way higher valuation these days, which reduces upside for rank and file employees. (Netscape went public at a valuation of $1B for example, barely a “unicorn.”) Not that there is no upside at all any more, just that the fabled stories from the MSFT and dot com era don’t necessarily apply. And the tax laws still suck, so I’m pretty sure Mr. Lyons was taxed as if it were cashing in a lottery ticket instead of collecting something he had earned over a period of a year and a half.
* Apology for the section on Bozos: Bozo is a the maiden name of my step-grandmother, and it happens to be a common Hungarian surname. Using it as a term of abuse is insulting to Hungarian-Americans. My step-great-grandmother was a very kind woman who also happened to receive a tremendous amount of crank phone calls. This is the kind of discrimination that we have had to face as long as I can remember.
Even though Baby Boomers are the people that said “Don’t trust anyone over 30” and pretty much invented age discrimination, it turns out that age discrimination is bad now that it’s happening to them.
And not only did the Baby Boomers not save the world, they didn’t even manage to save enough for retirement, so we need to un-age discriminate them into high paying jobs right away. We Gen Xers understand, so we’ll step aside for a decade or two.
As long as we get hilarious and insightful books out of the deal like this one, I guess it’s a fair trade off. Highly recommended, especially if you are working in tech or a tech adjacent company.
April 8, 2016
This book gets five stars for its sheer importance. It is a long-overdue takedown of the worst aspects of Silicon Valley culture, employing time-tested weapons for challenging hegemonic wisdom: sarcasm, ridicule, and satire. No sacred cow goes unslaughtered, and the result is one of the funniest books I have ever read. The book is not perfect. Lyons has an obvious axe to grind, his vulgarity is off-putting, and his mean-spirited takedowns of specific colleagues made me squirm. Nonetheless, this is a book the world needs, and Lyons' acerbic humor is what allows him to take on the juggernaut of Silicon Valley startup culture. Absurd and humorous anecdotes aside, the book is at its best when Lyons steps back from his own situation to reflect on the broader dynamics of the start-up bubble: nonsensical business culture and practices, exploitation of naive workers, rampant inexperience, discrimination (particularly ageism), the substitution of marketing for quality, the grow or die mentality, and incoherent business strategies that succeed only in enriching a handful of founders and investors. Whatever one thinks of Lyons' style, I hope the book ignites a much-needed conversation about the start-up bubble. And if the bubble does burst, I suspect many will look back on Lyons as a prophet.
May 15, 2016
Wow ... I hated this book!!
First of all, let's get something out of the way: this book is not funny. It's, I dunno, petty. And a bit vindictive.
But what's the most disappointing is the author makes some good points: about how tech companies are de-valuing labor, about how the funding and IPO model is broken. But he wraps it in such self-aggrandizing, ageist bullshit that it's impossible to take seriously.
In the first 15 pages, he talks about how astounded he is that Hubspot has hired him for a marketing position when he's got no marketing experience. Then he loses his mind that his boss is only 5 years out of college. Um, how are you surprised? This guy has 5 more years experience then you do - of course you report to him.
From that point on, you never hear about someone without also hearing about how old they are. He complains that everyone makes him feel old while he's busy writing a book about how young and dumb they all are. Pot? Meet kettle.
He also seems pretty out of touch for a guy who was a Newsweek tech reporter. If you reported on these companies so much how did you not know what you were getting into?
He complains that there's no diversity in tech, but then gets excited when he's in an LA writers room with all dudes where he can make jokes about "huge cocks and dry vaginas". He openly mocks his company on Facebook and wonders why he gets in trouble.
Now do I think he had some legitimate gripes about Hubspot? Sure. But I expected an experienced journalist to be able to frame it in a way that didn't make me hate him. Instead, he came across like a grumpy old man who had an axe to grind.
If you're looking for insight into the current state of the tech industry, this isn't your book. You want to hear a guy talk about how great he is and complain about his coworkers for 250 pages? This is your book.
First of all, let's get something out of the way: this book is not funny. It's, I dunno, petty. And a bit vindictive.
But what's the most disappointing is the author makes some good points: about how tech companies are de-valuing labor, about how the funding and IPO model is broken. But he wraps it in such self-aggrandizing, ageist bullshit that it's impossible to take seriously.
In the first 15 pages, he talks about how astounded he is that Hubspot has hired him for a marketing position when he's got no marketing experience. Then he loses his mind that his boss is only 5 years out of college. Um, how are you surprised? This guy has 5 more years experience then you do - of course you report to him.
From that point on, you never hear about someone without also hearing about how old they are. He complains that everyone makes him feel old while he's busy writing a book about how young and dumb they all are. Pot? Meet kettle.
He also seems pretty out of touch for a guy who was a Newsweek tech reporter. If you reported on these companies so much how did you not know what you were getting into?
He complains that there's no diversity in tech, but then gets excited when he's in an LA writers room with all dudes where he can make jokes about "huge cocks and dry vaginas". He openly mocks his company on Facebook and wonders why he gets in trouble.
Now do I think he had some legitimate gripes about Hubspot? Sure. But I expected an experienced journalist to be able to frame it in a way that didn't make me hate him. Instead, he came across like a grumpy old man who had an axe to grind.
If you're looking for insight into the current state of the tech industry, this isn't your book. You want to hear a guy talk about how great he is and complain about his coworkers for 250 pages? This is your book.
May 19, 2016
I get it. I’m an old guy working in high tech, but I’ve always been here and in Canada we’re at a slight remove from the unicorn madness infecting some other tech centres. I can understand Dan’s snark and I’ve seen evidence of ruthless backstabbing, hi-tech mean-girling, hare-brained revelations from egotistical narcissists, Kool-aid slurping wage slaves, frat boy brogrammers and more - his just goes to eleven.
But calling out the bro-coders out for their frat boy antics then gleefully recounting the dick, fart and shit jokes you live on in the writers room seems disingenuous. I understand you calling out the 20-somethings for their lack of experience, but can you please not mention you were kind of a big deal at Newsweek again?
I’m not sure what I wanted from this story. Maybe more snark or some sort of narrative so that it didn’t just feel like a book-length bitch session. Dan manages to be at a complete remove from everyone involved in the story so that it feels like he’s just lobbing spitballs at the tech industry now that he’s safely hidden behind the protective apron of Hollywood.
Maybe if you work in hi-tech and still can’t explain what it is you do to your folks you can send them this so they get a feel for how far removed from reality the crazy farm can get.
But calling out the bro-coders out for their frat boy antics then gleefully recounting the dick, fart and shit jokes you live on in the writers room seems disingenuous. I understand you calling out the 20-somethings for their lack of experience, but can you please not mention you were kind of a big deal at Newsweek again?
I’m not sure what I wanted from this story. Maybe more snark or some sort of narrative so that it didn’t just feel like a book-length bitch session. Dan manages to be at a complete remove from everyone involved in the story so that it feels like he’s just lobbing spitballs at the tech industry now that he’s safely hidden behind the protective apron of Hollywood.
Maybe if you work in hi-tech and still can’t explain what it is you do to your folks you can send them this so they get a feel for how far removed from reality the crazy farm can get.
April 18, 2016
The author is so deeply unlikeable and the narrative so unreliable that it's hard to get any wisdom out of it, like trying to understand the ravings of a resentful teenager.
More to this point: He sounds like a nightmare to work with.
He calls people "bozos, graspers and self-promoters, shameless resume padders" for nothing more than setting up a personal website [working in tech], joining Toastmasters clubs to improve public speaking skills, and organizing kayaking outings.
He doesn't like how his coworkers over-use exclamation points, so he sends out sarcastic company wide emails roasting people: " 'Jan is the best!!! Her can-do attitude and big smile cheer me up every morning!!!!!!!' (Jan is the grumpy woman who runs the blog; she scowls a lot.)" Poor Jan.
He has no problem with running a scam as long as he gets his: "Even if I stay only one year, I will get five thousand options, and if the IPO goes well, those options could be worth some money." He expounds on this crashingly boring and quease-inducing point multiple times making it seem like he's a complete tool.
He characterizes everyone at Apple as "brainwashed corporate zombies who all truly believe they are doing incredibly important work." If you're the average decent hard-working person trying to do nice things and not scam anyone, Lyons' response to this is: haha, sucker. His greatest admiration is saved for people who sold worthless startups like Netscape at the high point of a boom or joined months before an IPO and got rewarded out of proportion to their work.
I generally think that reading books is preferable to not reading books but in this case you probably don't want to spend any more time in the author's mind.
More to this point: He sounds like a nightmare to work with.
He calls people "bozos, graspers and self-promoters, shameless resume padders" for nothing more than setting up a personal website [working in tech], joining Toastmasters clubs to improve public speaking skills, and organizing kayaking outings.
He doesn't like how his coworkers over-use exclamation points, so he sends out sarcastic company wide emails roasting people: " 'Jan is the best!!! Her can-do attitude and big smile cheer me up every morning!!!!!!!' (Jan is the grumpy woman who runs the blog; she scowls a lot.)" Poor Jan.
He has no problem with running a scam as long as he gets his: "Even if I stay only one year, I will get five thousand options, and if the IPO goes well, those options could be worth some money." He expounds on this crashingly boring and quease-inducing point multiple times making it seem like he's a complete tool.
He characterizes everyone at Apple as "brainwashed corporate zombies who all truly believe they are doing incredibly important work." If you're the average decent hard-working person trying to do nice things and not scam anyone, Lyons' response to this is: haha, sucker. His greatest admiration is saved for people who sold worthless startups like Netscape at the high point of a boom or joined months before an IPO and got rewarded out of proportion to their work.
I generally think that reading books is preferable to not reading books but in this case you probably don't want to spend any more time in the author's mind.
May 27, 2016
I was torn between a 1 star and a 5 star review. The 5 stars because I can't remember the last time I read a book that made me so angry. I was initially really excited to read this - like the author I am a 50+ guy who jumped into the much younger world of start-ups. I was curious about his thoughts and experiences, both good and bad. Given his journalism background, I had really high expectations. I was completely let down. This book was really just a polemic about the evils of start-ups and their culture, both in general and a high level of specificity the company he worked at HubSpot.
Is there a culture of ageism, sexism, racism, etc. at some start-ups? Absolutely. And at established companies? Of course! These issues are not start-up issues, but societal issues. Is HubSpot a weird place to work? I really have no idea - based on the author's experience, yes, but unfortunately we only got one side of the story. Is IBM a weird place to work? Perhaps if you're 25 years old - who is to know?
Further, the author trashed the product, but he never said if he ever used it or not. And I'm not sure he realizes that ageism is a two-way street. He is so critical of the younger generation that is leading the company that he refuses to give them credit for building something. He may not like what the product is intended to do, but it doesn't mean it doesn't do it well. I don't like what Marlboro does, but that doesn't it mean it doesn't do it well.
What irked me the most is as a fish out of water at the start-ups I have worked at, I try hard to break the stereotype of the old cranky guy who refuses to adapt - in short, what younger employers fear. What I do is try to learn as much as I can from my much younger co-workers (I've learned tons!) and embrace the energy and spirit of passionate, intelligent people putting their heart and soul into creating great companies. He criticizes the HubSpot team for feeling they are doing something "revolutionary", but why is that wrong? Everyone should feel that about their company!
In short, I've worked for or with about six start-ups, not all were started by white males or even predominately male. I never saw a nerf gun, but did have lots of candy. Some companies flourished, some didn't. All were exciting, intellectually challenging, and amazing places to work. I'm truly sorry the author didn't have the same experiences I've had.
Is there a culture of ageism, sexism, racism, etc. at some start-ups? Absolutely. And at established companies? Of course! These issues are not start-up issues, but societal issues. Is HubSpot a weird place to work? I really have no idea - based on the author's experience, yes, but unfortunately we only got one side of the story. Is IBM a weird place to work? Perhaps if you're 25 years old - who is to know?
Further, the author trashed the product, but he never said if he ever used it or not. And I'm not sure he realizes that ageism is a two-way street. He is so critical of the younger generation that is leading the company that he refuses to give them credit for building something. He may not like what the product is intended to do, but it doesn't mean it doesn't do it well. I don't like what Marlboro does, but that doesn't it mean it doesn't do it well.
What irked me the most is as a fish out of water at the start-ups I have worked at, I try hard to break the stereotype of the old cranky guy who refuses to adapt - in short, what younger employers fear. What I do is try to learn as much as I can from my much younger co-workers (I've learned tons!) and embrace the energy and spirit of passionate, intelligent people putting their heart and soul into creating great companies. He criticizes the HubSpot team for feeling they are doing something "revolutionary", but why is that wrong? Everyone should feel that about their company!
In short, I've worked for or with about six start-ups, not all were started by white males or even predominately male. I never saw a nerf gun, but did have lots of candy. Some companies flourished, some didn't. All were exciting, intellectually challenging, and amazing places to work. I'm truly sorry the author didn't have the same experiences I've had.
May 14, 2016
This was a fun read that anyone in the tech industry can relate to.
One reason I knocked my rating down is the "aw, shucks" tone the author takes. He makes it sound like he found the job, worked there a few months, and then realized he would write a book about it. I call bullshit - he went in to the job knowing full well he was going to write about it. I mean, he was a tech writer for Newsweek beforehand so it's not exactly a stretch.
I also felt that the author really downplayed how much of an a-hole he was at work. In several places he feigns surprise that people at HubSpot got mad when he said shitty things. He also talks about how people are just like that in newsrooms - so how could you blame him, right?
Newsflash, Dan: if you come in to a new environment and start making sarcastic public remarks all the time about people you work with, nobody is going to like you or want to work with you.
But anyway, the story was entertaining and Lyons raised some good points about ageism in the tech industry.
One reason I knocked my rating down is the "aw, shucks" tone the author takes. He makes it sound like he found the job, worked there a few months, and then realized he would write a book about it. I call bullshit - he went in to the job knowing full well he was going to write about it. I mean, he was a tech writer for Newsweek beforehand so it's not exactly a stretch.
I also felt that the author really downplayed how much of an a-hole he was at work. In several places he feigns surprise that people at HubSpot got mad when he said shitty things. He also talks about how people are just like that in newsrooms - so how could you blame him, right?
Newsflash, Dan: if you come in to a new environment and start making sarcastic public remarks all the time about people you work with, nobody is going to like you or want to work with you.
But anyway, the story was entertaining and Lyons raised some good points about ageism in the tech industry.
May 4, 2016
First up: HubSpot garners zero sympathy from this girl for being exposed in this fashion. I know these places exist because I worked for a "lite" version of them in a different industry. As a woman (and 38 years old at the time), I felt very out of place in a company that encouraged alcohol-infused fraternization with my coworkers both on and off the clock. Mind you I didn't feel out of place because I didn't drink (I love beer!), but because I wasn't partial to making myself vulnerable to people who had zero vested interest in my personal or professional well-being. My disinterest in partaking naturally made me feel disconnected, sad and ancient, and so I left after a year for greener pastures, as they say.
So yes, the HubSpot "culture" is deplorable; however, Lyons doesn't do himself any favors here. In fact, I was sincerely amused that someone who had the opportunity to write a book and shed himself in the best light possible would paint himself as such an arrogant tool. But therein lies the problem: Lyons doesn't recognize his own haughtiness. Instead, he believes that (contrary to what he's actually written) all of his actions at HubSpot were perfectly thoughtful, rational and reasonable, and all of HubSpot's responses to his actions were grossly inappropriate or blown way out of proportion.
The truth of the matter is, HubSpot is a terrible place to work AND Lyons is a terrible employee and coworker.
For instance, if you're going to cry foul over age discrimination, maybe it's best not to belabor the point that all of your coworkers are numbskulls walking around waiting for their brains to finish forming (because they're too young and stupid to be in the positions they're in, you see).
Or, maybe it's not entirely unreasonable for your boss to ask that you coordinate podcast schedules and guests with the blog and marketing teams so they can promote it, being that you work for a company that shills marketing tools. (Lyons' reasoning is that since one of the idiot executives is hosting the show instead of himself, the podcast is doomed for failure and no one will listen to it so why would anyone bother putting any effort into promoting it.)
Or, maybe it's not wrong that your female coworkers think it's inappropriate to discuss at work with another male colleague how you had to fire your 19 year old German au pair because your wife was uncomfortable with her presence (the nudge nudge wink implication being your wife was obviously jealous because another woman in near proximity threatened her sexuality). Nope, that's not offensive at all...or at least not to anyone who matters in your world, amirite ol' chap?
There are dozens of these types of encounters which Lyons documents in his book, many of which find him begrudgingly - and insincerely - apologizing to some person or another because they've overreacted to his completely rational behavior. Yeah, I don't buy it, and the fact that this isn't fiction and Lyons put this out there for the world to critique is indicative of his obtuseness.
I really hate to be so hard on this guy, but I have a weak spot filled with distaste for all forms of hubris. A little humility goes a long way, bro.
So yes, the HubSpot "culture" is deplorable; however, Lyons doesn't do himself any favors here. In fact, I was sincerely amused that someone who had the opportunity to write a book and shed himself in the best light possible would paint himself as such an arrogant tool. But therein lies the problem: Lyons doesn't recognize his own haughtiness. Instead, he believes that (contrary to what he's actually written) all of his actions at HubSpot were perfectly thoughtful, rational and reasonable, and all of HubSpot's responses to his actions were grossly inappropriate or blown way out of proportion.
The truth of the matter is, HubSpot is a terrible place to work AND Lyons is a terrible employee and coworker.
For instance, if you're going to cry foul over age discrimination, maybe it's best not to belabor the point that all of your coworkers are numbskulls walking around waiting for their brains to finish forming (because they're too young and stupid to be in the positions they're in, you see).
Or, maybe it's not entirely unreasonable for your boss to ask that you coordinate podcast schedules and guests with the blog and marketing teams so they can promote it, being that you work for a company that shills marketing tools. (Lyons' reasoning is that since one of the idiot executives is hosting the show instead of himself, the podcast is doomed for failure and no one will listen to it so why would anyone bother putting any effort into promoting it.)
Or, maybe it's not wrong that your female coworkers think it's inappropriate to discuss at work with another male colleague how you had to fire your 19 year old German au pair because your wife was uncomfortable with her presence (the nudge nudge wink implication being your wife was obviously jealous because another woman in near proximity threatened her sexuality). Nope, that's not offensive at all...or at least not to anyone who matters in your world, amirite ol' chap?
There are dozens of these types of encounters which Lyons documents in his book, many of which find him begrudgingly - and insincerely - apologizing to some person or another because they've overreacted to his completely rational behavior. Yeah, I don't buy it, and the fact that this isn't fiction and Lyons put this out there for the world to critique is indicative of his obtuseness.
I really hate to be so hard on this guy, but I have a weak spot filled with distaste for all forms of hubris. A little humility goes a long way, bro.
October 18, 2018
I read Dan Lyon’s LinkedIn post about his book two years back, and have been curious to read his book – especially since some people in Hubspot actually tried to obtain a copy and indulged in coercion to stop the book. I also read co-founder Dharmesh Shah’s mature response (on behalf of him as well as Brian Halligan), also on LinkedIn, though he does not address all the issues in Dan’s book.
Somehow, got to reading it only now. This is an especially interesting read on Tech Startups and does offer lessons such companies would be better off considering. And yet, some of Dan’s criticism does also come across as whining and bitterness as a result of his personal experience.
At over 50 years of age, Dan decides to enter the world of Tech Startup by joining Hubspot – a Boston based company with a product for Inbound marketing. He has been in the media industry for long and realizes it will take some effort to fit in to a new industry. He has kids and his wife recently left her job, which adds to the pressure to get back to work as quickly as possible. His initial days and weeks are frustrating with no direction on what is expected of him, very little dialogue with seniors, and a frat house culture gone berserk. His work assignments are mostly around writing lame blogs. Most of the Hubspot employees are fresh out of college and have little or no real coaching. In order to keep them motivated, they are offered a fun place to work – bright colors, bean bags, beer on the job etc. At times such as Halloween and Freaky Fridays, employees can come in wearing costumes of their choice. Employees are told that they are actually making the world a better place. Employees who leave or are fired (which happens quite often) are announced as graduating with an informally worded mail doing the rounds. The culture code presentation with the “HEART” acronym comes across as full of fluff. Dan sticks out as an odd person – struggling to fit in and also makes detractors with his frankness. Here, Dan’s criticism is on solid ground and this is certainly a culture where older employees, as also many personality types, and those who value authenticity would struggle to fit in.
As part of his narrative Dan also suggests that Hubspot has a poor product, and has to spend a lot on marketing to sell it, as also to retain customers. While it is difficult to know if that is case, Hubspot has seen very strong growth and indicates that this cannot be entirely true. He also takes aim at startups in general and the trends they back. Eg: he takes aim at Software-as-a-Service companies, which is completely off the mark. Even going by his own account, there is an indication that Dan did not try very hard to fit in either, nor did he offer suggestions constructively. Brian Halligan was once quoted as saying that experience was largely overvalued, prompting a bitter Facebook post by Dan, which he acknowledges might not have been the best approach.
While he uses pseudo names for a few people in the book, he names Chief Marketing Officer Mike Volpe and Head of Content Joe Chernov (his supervisor for part of the duration) in the Epilogue who had to leave as a result of the FBI investigation (though no charges were pressed). After he gets another job, Dan resigns giving a 6 week notice but is asked to leave the very next day.
There are good lessons from the book on – the need for diversity, valuing experience, promoting time tested values of respect, openness, trust, transparency, authenticity, fairness rather than a cult-like behavior and make believe.
A book I certainly recommend reading.
My rating: 3.5 / 5.
Somehow, got to reading it only now. This is an especially interesting read on Tech Startups and does offer lessons such companies would be better off considering. And yet, some of Dan’s criticism does also come across as whining and bitterness as a result of his personal experience.
At over 50 years of age, Dan decides to enter the world of Tech Startup by joining Hubspot – a Boston based company with a product for Inbound marketing. He has been in the media industry for long and realizes it will take some effort to fit in to a new industry. He has kids and his wife recently left her job, which adds to the pressure to get back to work as quickly as possible. His initial days and weeks are frustrating with no direction on what is expected of him, very little dialogue with seniors, and a frat house culture gone berserk. His work assignments are mostly around writing lame blogs. Most of the Hubspot employees are fresh out of college and have little or no real coaching. In order to keep them motivated, they are offered a fun place to work – bright colors, bean bags, beer on the job etc. At times such as Halloween and Freaky Fridays, employees can come in wearing costumes of their choice. Employees are told that they are actually making the world a better place. Employees who leave or are fired (which happens quite often) are announced as graduating with an informally worded mail doing the rounds. The culture code presentation with the “HEART” acronym comes across as full of fluff. Dan sticks out as an odd person – struggling to fit in and also makes detractors with his frankness. Here, Dan’s criticism is on solid ground and this is certainly a culture where older employees, as also many personality types, and those who value authenticity would struggle to fit in.
As part of his narrative Dan also suggests that Hubspot has a poor product, and has to spend a lot on marketing to sell it, as also to retain customers. While it is difficult to know if that is case, Hubspot has seen very strong growth and indicates that this cannot be entirely true. He also takes aim at startups in general and the trends they back. Eg: he takes aim at Software-as-a-Service companies, which is completely off the mark. Even going by his own account, there is an indication that Dan did not try very hard to fit in either, nor did he offer suggestions constructively. Brian Halligan was once quoted as saying that experience was largely overvalued, prompting a bitter Facebook post by Dan, which he acknowledges might not have been the best approach.
While he uses pseudo names for a few people in the book, he names Chief Marketing Officer Mike Volpe and Head of Content Joe Chernov (his supervisor for part of the duration) in the Epilogue who had to leave as a result of the FBI investigation (though no charges were pressed). After he gets another job, Dan resigns giving a 6 week notice but is asked to leave the very next day.
There are good lessons from the book on – the need for diversity, valuing experience, promoting time tested values of respect, openness, trust, transparency, authenticity, fairness rather than a cult-like behavior and make believe.
A book I certainly recommend reading.
My rating: 3.5 / 5.
December 13, 2017
This book affected me at a profound level. I was the oldest employee at various startups for a decade, and Dan Lyons accurately described the absurdity and frustration I encountered at all of them. He crafted his story so well that I felt transported back to that special hell of a fifty-something writer toiling away for years in a frat-house sweatshop with a "team" of ill-prepared (yet oh-so-special) snowflakes.
If you find yourself considering employment at a similar company, and if you're "old" (over 40 and certainly over 50), please read this book before you sign anything or accept any job offers. It's a cautionary tale that is the most perfect description of the current startup "culture" I've ever read. It made my blood boil while reading it, and at the same time I found myself laughing out loud throughout.
"Disrupted" is a remarkable achievement, giving both prospective employees and investors a razor-sharp look inside a hellhole that seems so pleasant from its exterior. I loved this book and hope all my former, present and future colleagues take the time to read it.
If you find yourself considering employment at a similar company, and if you're "old" (over 40 and certainly over 50), please read this book before you sign anything or accept any job offers. It's a cautionary tale that is the most perfect description of the current startup "culture" I've ever read. It made my blood boil while reading it, and at the same time I found myself laughing out loud throughout.
"Disrupted" is a remarkable achievement, giving both prospective employees and investors a razor-sharp look inside a hellhole that seems so pleasant from its exterior. I loved this book and hope all my former, present and future colleagues take the time to read it.
April 25, 2016
Dan Lyons is a Journalist. I can't emphasize that last word enough. Nor, it seems, can Dan Lyons.
Lyons, a former Time writer and internet content raconteur, found himself in his early 50s without a decent job. After decades of covering the latest 20-something billionaires, he (sensibly) decided he wanted to jump into a startup to try to make his own big hit. Disrupted is his tale of woe, bemoaning the millennials and their shoddy union sensibilities and their loud music (no, seriously).
I don't want to dismiss Lyons' takedown of his former employer, Hubspot, as a simple case of "Old guy doesn't get how things work now." There's absolutely no doubt that the management, owners and coworkers at his new employer are insane. The problem is, the things he brings up as issues on which to prosecute an entire industry/generation aren't exclusive to either the industry or that generation: As someone who's worked for a marketing agency, the headquarters of a multilevel marketing company and yes, even newspapers, all of the traits and peculiarities he mentions are things I've encountered. The trait of "being a shitty manager/coworker" is not endemic to a certain age group; it's more just an indicator of shitty people.
Don't get me wrong, the book is fun! See him learn that manager does not equal friend when his crazy direct supervisor's power-tripping petty bullshit constantly tears into Lyons after acting like they're best pals. Watch through some veiled sexism (paraphrase: "I'm not saying all women are shitty, but the three or four whom I interact with the most and are the only ones I talk about in depth in the book are terrible workers AND people") as he grovels to the PR manager for offending her (paraphrase: "I don't understand why she's all upset just because I said an interview she arranged for the CEO went terribly."). Revel as he reveals just how freaking out of touch he is when he tells us about his "hundreds of thousands of Facebook followers" then acts shocked and violated when it turns out his employer is watching what he writes and doesn't particularly enjoy his raining criticism down upon them.
As a former journalist, I particularly disliked the part where he complained about how much better journalists are as people. DID YOU KNOW that journalists: a) don't like meetings; b) would "[slam] doors and [turn] the air blue with profanity" if their boss made them a promise and then someone up the line changed their mind; c) if made to go to training, make fun of each other and the instructors and intentionally waste time. Oh, and also joke about killing someone in front an HR person; d) are lousy when asked to write someone beneath their level, like lead-generating blog posts (because of all their JOURNALISM EXPERIENCE).
Some of those are true, about some of the journalists I've worked with. Most are not. (Though, in fairness, journalists - especially older journalists - do tend to complain a lot that they're not allowed to say literally whatever they want in the newsroom, regardless of sexism/racism/profanity/just terrible ideas. As someone who's listened to a lot of them, this censorship is decidedly in everyone's best interest.) In fact, I'd bet you could replace the word "journalist" with "white guys who worked a white-collar job in the 80s/early 90s" and a lot of Lyons' complaints would have exactly the same meaning. Please note that I'm not calling him racist; I'm saying he's a overprivileged twit.
I'm not so much upset with the book or the writing as I am the idea of the book. Michael Lewis rose to fame with his (then-)shocking expose of the financial industry in Liar's Poker precisely because we didn't already know about. Lyons tended to follow trend stories (he did write for Time, after all) back when he wrote regularly, so his explosive reveal that "most web-based startups have terrible products and even worse business plans" isn't shocking, it's late and, most importantly, lazy. There's lots of good journalism out there about the bad and the good of our current economic/business/cultural climate. And it doesn't require taking a single company as evidence/harbinger of the doom of all things.
In a way, it's a tale of two mistakes. His, for his choice of employer, and me, for choice of reading material. I doubt either of us will make the same mistakes again. Oh, well. Unlike most of the readers of this book, at least I learned something.
Lyons, a former Time writer and internet content raconteur, found himself in his early 50s without a decent job. After decades of covering the latest 20-something billionaires, he (sensibly) decided he wanted to jump into a startup to try to make his own big hit. Disrupted is his tale of woe, bemoaning the millennials and their shoddy union sensibilities and their loud music (no, seriously).
I don't want to dismiss Lyons' takedown of his former employer, Hubspot, as a simple case of "Old guy doesn't get how things work now." There's absolutely no doubt that the management, owners and coworkers at his new employer are insane. The problem is, the things he brings up as issues on which to prosecute an entire industry/generation aren't exclusive to either the industry or that generation: As someone who's worked for a marketing agency, the headquarters of a multilevel marketing company and yes, even newspapers, all of the traits and peculiarities he mentions are things I've encountered. The trait of "being a shitty manager/coworker" is not endemic to a certain age group; it's more just an indicator of shitty people.
Don't get me wrong, the book is fun! See him learn that manager does not equal friend when his crazy direct supervisor's power-tripping petty bullshit constantly tears into Lyons after acting like they're best pals. Watch through some veiled sexism (paraphrase: "I'm not saying all women are shitty, but the three or four whom I interact with the most and are the only ones I talk about in depth in the book are terrible workers AND people") as he grovels to the PR manager for offending her (paraphrase: "I don't understand why she's all upset just because I said an interview she arranged for the CEO went terribly."). Revel as he reveals just how freaking out of touch he is when he tells us about his "hundreds of thousands of Facebook followers" then acts shocked and violated when it turns out his employer is watching what he writes and doesn't particularly enjoy his raining criticism down upon them.
As a former journalist, I particularly disliked the part where he complained about how much better journalists are as people. DID YOU KNOW that journalists: a) don't like meetings; b) would "[slam] doors and [turn] the air blue with profanity" if their boss made them a promise and then someone up the line changed their mind; c) if made to go to training, make fun of each other and the instructors and intentionally waste time. Oh, and also joke about killing someone in front an HR person; d) are lousy when asked to write someone beneath their level, like lead-generating blog posts (because of all their JOURNALISM EXPERIENCE).
Some of those are true, about some of the journalists I've worked with. Most are not. (Though, in fairness, journalists - especially older journalists - do tend to complain a lot that they're not allowed to say literally whatever they want in the newsroom, regardless of sexism/racism/profanity/just terrible ideas. As someone who's listened to a lot of them, this censorship is decidedly in everyone's best interest.) In fact, I'd bet you could replace the word "journalist" with "white guys who worked a white-collar job in the 80s/early 90s" and a lot of Lyons' complaints would have exactly the same meaning. Please note that I'm not calling him racist; I'm saying he's a overprivileged twit.
I'm not so much upset with the book or the writing as I am the idea of the book. Michael Lewis rose to fame with his (then-)shocking expose of the financial industry in Liar's Poker precisely because we didn't already know about. Lyons tended to follow trend stories (he did write for Time, after all) back when he wrote regularly, so his explosive reveal that "most web-based startups have terrible products and even worse business plans" isn't shocking, it's late and, most importantly, lazy. There's lots of good journalism out there about the bad and the good of our current economic/business/cultural climate. And it doesn't require taking a single company as evidence/harbinger of the doom of all things.
In a way, it's a tale of two mistakes. His, for his choice of employer, and me, for choice of reading material. I doubt either of us will make the same mistakes again. Oh, well. Unlike most of the readers of this book, at least I learned something.
August 28, 2016
It is with some regret that I give this book 5 stars, because I have met some of the people in this book, and there is a lot here that is undoubtedly a hatchet job (more about that in a moment). But it's so damn entertaining, and bears so many truths about the world of Internet startups, that I have to acknowledge that this is a "must read."
Dan Lyons shows realistically and with great humor that some Internet startups have built a culture that engages in trivialities, is ageist, sexist, and not very diverse. If you're in college or in your 20s and think that you want to get involved with a startup, read this. Meanwhile, his subject is a marketing company (his is HubSpot) -- some of which are the bottom feeders of the Internet. These are companies that provide the tools to send spam and cultivate attention through devious link-baiting and other technological tricks. Ironically, the marketing company in question centers its lead generations not on the "inbound marketing" techniques they champion, but via a call center boiler room where they exploit (according to Lyons) cheap "bros" as employees. Lyons also pays witness and is a victim to some very crude management and power moves that I have seen in my own time in startups.
And why are these startups so badly managed? Not very well articulated here, the answer is growth. These companies must grow or die, and the "hockey stick" of growth provides berths for a lot of people who should have been shed by such companies earlier. Indeed, Lyons's own hiring is probably evidence of the desperation of a company that is growing very fast and doesn't really understand its own business. They think they have a place for an ex-writer for Newsweek, but really, they don't. They're acting on a fantasy. But is that surprising? Not when the company can't yet figure out their business model and how to make money.
I'm a 20-year veteran of startups, and am older that Lyons, so much of his testimony rings quite true. I have been very lucky myself and so far have not seen much age discrimination, though everywhere I see the lack of diversity he describes. As an industry, we're trying to fix that, but it's going to take a long time.
Having said all that, Lyons is incredibly naive in his own narrative. He gets his job via the CEO and the CTO, but then finds himself neglected by the chief marketing officer. Welcome to the working world! Lyons should have picked up much earlier that there is really no place for him at the company. He sticks around, and sticks around, and his protests that he needs his paycheck strike a false note because he very swiftly gets an opportunity to write for the "Silicon Valley" series, and eventually snags a writing gig at ValleyWag. Why not sooner? Hard to say. He seems to think there is some dignity in his old job -- journalism -- where he prides himself in being able to trade dirty jokes. Really? That's the good old place?
There is a constant drumroll of negativity regarding the CMO, but the reality is that he presents very little evidence that the CMO cares at all. The insinuation is that the CMO is irresponsible, but the presentation of the facts on that score is pretty weak. Eventually the CMO is fired for events that seem to be about capturing the manuscript of this very book - but so far the records are sealed and so it's all a hypothesis.
Finally, a huge gap is the story around HubSpot's engineering and product teams. Lyons notes frequently that the software is mediocre, but yet customers stick with it. Maybe we should infer that the product is not so bad. Knowing some of these people, again I'll suggest that the perceived gaps in the software have a lot to do with growth and the stress around shifting product requirements and the competitive landscape.
Once again, to the college or 20-something reader: There are great technology startups out there that have a real mission. Seek them out. And let's hope that someone writes a book as entertaining as this one that is about a company that does right by its customers, shareholders, and the public.
Dan Lyons shows realistically and with great humor that some Internet startups have built a culture that engages in trivialities, is ageist, sexist, and not very diverse. If you're in college or in your 20s and think that you want to get involved with a startup, read this. Meanwhile, his subject is a marketing company (his is HubSpot) -- some of which are the bottom feeders of the Internet. These are companies that provide the tools to send spam and cultivate attention through devious link-baiting and other technological tricks. Ironically, the marketing company in question centers its lead generations not on the "inbound marketing" techniques they champion, but via a call center boiler room where they exploit (according to Lyons) cheap "bros" as employees. Lyons also pays witness and is a victim to some very crude management and power moves that I have seen in my own time in startups.
And why are these startups so badly managed? Not very well articulated here, the answer is growth. These companies must grow or die, and the "hockey stick" of growth provides berths for a lot of people who should have been shed by such companies earlier. Indeed, Lyons's own hiring is probably evidence of the desperation of a company that is growing very fast and doesn't really understand its own business. They think they have a place for an ex-writer for Newsweek, but really, they don't. They're acting on a fantasy. But is that surprising? Not when the company can't yet figure out their business model and how to make money.
I'm a 20-year veteran of startups, and am older that Lyons, so much of his testimony rings quite true. I have been very lucky myself and so far have not seen much age discrimination, though everywhere I see the lack of diversity he describes. As an industry, we're trying to fix that, but it's going to take a long time.
Having said all that, Lyons is incredibly naive in his own narrative. He gets his job via the CEO and the CTO, but then finds himself neglected by the chief marketing officer. Welcome to the working world! Lyons should have picked up much earlier that there is really no place for him at the company. He sticks around, and sticks around, and his protests that he needs his paycheck strike a false note because he very swiftly gets an opportunity to write for the "Silicon Valley" series, and eventually snags a writing gig at ValleyWag. Why not sooner? Hard to say. He seems to think there is some dignity in his old job -- journalism -- where he prides himself in being able to trade dirty jokes. Really? That's the good old place?
There is a constant drumroll of negativity regarding the CMO, but the reality is that he presents very little evidence that the CMO cares at all. The insinuation is that the CMO is irresponsible, but the presentation of the facts on that score is pretty weak. Eventually the CMO is fired for events that seem to be about capturing the manuscript of this very book - but so far the records are sealed and so it's all a hypothesis.
Finally, a huge gap is the story around HubSpot's engineering and product teams. Lyons notes frequently that the software is mediocre, but yet customers stick with it. Maybe we should infer that the product is not so bad. Knowing some of these people, again I'll suggest that the perceived gaps in the software have a lot to do with growth and the stress around shifting product requirements and the competitive landscape.
Once again, to the college or 20-something reader: There are great technology startups out there that have a real mission. Seek them out. And let's hope that someone writes a book as entertaining as this one that is about a company that does right by its customers, shareholders, and the public.
June 13, 2016
If you work in tech and ESPECIALLY if you work for a start up....this is a must read. Being one of the millennials that are constantly referenced throughout the book, I found it enlightening. I found myself bursting out laughing, but then almost crying....because his perception of what "motivates us" is tragically accurate. I can see why his analysis can be interpreted as insulting, but I find it to be more of a reality check. Biggest takeaway: Though it seems like common decency, be very nice to your older coworkers with real world experience (especially if you work for a "young" company where the average age is 26). You never know if they are secretly being recruited for a highly coveted spot as a writer for an HBO series, which if you were perceived as an arrogant imbecile, you will be mercilessly parodied.
May 2, 2017
This book is extremely disappointing. I have rarely come across such level of wasteful literature in my life. It's a complete rant of a middle-age unhappy fella who took a job without having a clue what it was about and blaming his inability to understand the environment he was in, on others, instead of himself. I had to give it one star because there was no lower options, but it felt unfair to other one-star books I have seen
October 9, 2016
An out-of-work, fifty-something journalist takes a job at HubSpot an actual start-up tech company in Boston. The result of this cultural mismatch is one hilariously funny book that also makes serious points about the latest stock market bubble in companies with dubious business plans, flim-flam 'management teams', rapacious venture capital backers, and fishy accounting.
Lyons strips away the trappings of free beer and ice cream, catchy slogans and can-do pep talks to show how companies like HubSpot systematically (and very cleverly) exploit young people who are paid terrible wages, worked to the point of burn out and then are 'graduated' (aka fired) the minute their performance lags. Lyons indulges in too much personal whining in the final couple of chapters, but the book is still well worth reading for an inside look at start-up company excesses.
As a former Wall Street analyst I've seen more than a few stock market bubbles and I can promise that this latest version, like all the others, will end badly. And as a once deeply devoted Goodreads reviewer I was cast back by this book into the dark, distressing months following a surprise Goodreads /Amazon 2015 Thanksgiving/pre-Christmas "design update" which generated thousands of negative comments from users. The pattern of sloppy programming, clueless marketing, careless disregard for customer responses, prioritization of Big Data harvesting and relentless focus on artificial accounting metrics...etc., etc. is a theme in Lyon's book that will resonate with serious GR reviewers. I'm still recovering from Goodreads shock #1, digesting the equally obnoxious Goodreads rollout #2....
Lyons strips away the trappings of free beer and ice cream, catchy slogans and can-do pep talks to show how companies like HubSpot systematically (and very cleverly) exploit young people who are paid terrible wages, worked to the point of burn out and then are 'graduated' (aka fired) the minute their performance lags. Lyons indulges in too much personal whining in the final couple of chapters, but the book is still well worth reading for an inside look at start-up company excesses.
As a former Wall Street analyst I've seen more than a few stock market bubbles and I can promise that this latest version, like all the others, will end badly. And as a once deeply devoted Goodreads reviewer I was cast back by this book into the dark, distressing months following a surprise Goodreads /Amazon 2015 Thanksgiving/pre-Christmas "design update" which generated thousands of negative comments from users. The pattern of sloppy programming, clueless marketing, careless disregard for customer responses, prioritization of Big Data harvesting and relentless focus on artificial accounting metrics...etc., etc. is a theme in Lyon's book that will resonate with serious GR reviewers. I'm still recovering from Goodreads shock #1, digesting the equally obnoxious Goodreads rollout #2....
April 12, 2016
Gimme a break, im 49 I work at a "unicorn" startup and this is not accurate for my company or any I know. The author chose a super douchy business segment (marketing) to begin with and got sold a bill of goods by guys who specialize in that. His resentment and characterizations of the "culture' show no empathy at all for people who he points out are new to the working world. He was looking for an IPO like everyone with half a brain is and had blinders on going in.
He is obviously bitter over not seeing the death of print journalism and his embarrassing short sighted-ness. Im embarrassed to be in the same generation as this guy.
Dont demonize a whole group of people over your failure.Grow a pair.
He is obviously bitter over not seeing the death of print journalism and his embarrassing short sighted-ness. Im embarrassed to be in the same generation as this guy.
Dont demonize a whole group of people over your failure.Grow a pair.
September 6, 2016
Dan Lyons had been laid off from his job as a technology editor at Newsweek. In his hunt for a new job he was hired by a Boston start-up company called HubSpot. On his first day of work Lyons realizes he is out of place. He is a 52-year-old, married with children and drives a Subaru outback. His fellow employees are very young, single, wear orange colored clothes (the company color) and sit on beanbags. Lyons states it was like a Montessori frat house. Lyons was hired as a marketing fellow and also was given some stock options. It turns out the company created software for sending out spam.
Lyons tells of his time at the company and his problems with the loose way the company was run. The book dramatically shows the difference between the ages. The book reveals some important social issues that society needs to address such as age discrimination.
The book is well written and in many ways it was hilarious. Lyons sheds some light on some troubling issues in the start-up culture. I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible. Lyons narrated the book.
Lyons tells of his time at the company and his problems with the loose way the company was run. The book dramatically shows the difference between the ages. The book reveals some important social issues that society needs to address such as age discrimination.
The book is well written and in many ways it was hilarious. Lyons sheds some light on some troubling issues in the start-up culture. I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible. Lyons narrated the book.
August 20, 2016
This book is an amazing piece of investigative journalism. It took a lot of guts to write. The legal hurdles are enormous, for one, enough to destroy anyone who hasn’t covered his or her bases. And Lyons’s method of truth-telling will make him feared by other companies, enough that it’s doubtful he’ll ever get hired again.
It is obvious from the beginning that the twenty-somethings working at start-up HubSpot do not like Lyons on sight, a “privileged” white man in his early 50s. The need to conform on their part is tremendous, because they are loaded with student debt, and don’t have many options for well-paying jobs. It causes them to fall into a cult-like trance of self-help guru nonsense and corporate-speak. This can be irritating to an intelligent person’s ears – which Lyons has. But their need to belong is intense, and anyone who threatens their sense of self and well-being, even at the expense of economic justice, is regarded as an enemy.
Lyons’s book is hilarious for simply pointing out the obvious, that we’re dealing here in a billion and a half valued company that sells a crappy product. And that this outfit from Cambridge, Massachusetts, typical for any suburban Boston enclave of college graduates (I am well aware of them), is a sham of diversity. Well they’re not completely white. At least there’s the founder, one of two, from Central Asia. He ends up doing what everyone would love to do, make millions of dollars from a relatively small initial investment (500,000 dollars, to be exact, something few of us have), even if that means exploiting countless nameless faces on his way to super-stardom and PowerPoint presentation glamour. Like most of the leaders in this book, he’s more into profiting from self-image than managing people.
Throughout Lyons says he’d stop ridiculing everyone for willfully brainwashed conformity if the product HubSpot sold was actually valuable. It’s not. It’s garbage software to help small businesses run blogs, a sixth-rate one compared to WordPress. College graduates at HubSpot are taking advantage of small business owners who lack the clout to not need the advertising of blogging. Meanwhile they throw parties, eat plenty of candy and are cheery-faced through and through. This is important to bear in mind. Lyons is not anti-corporate but anti-mind control.
As journalism memoir, Lyons’s skill at narration is outstanding. He takes you through a year in a start-up, and by the end of it, you understand how a company is made from top to bottom. It is very impressive the way he handles being laughed at by the young millennials, especially the women who need a mutual support system much more than the men do, who are more into self-delusion and following orders to a tee. Needless to say there are few women in the executive, probably because the women in such a climate aren’t very good at following orders. Ordinarily this would speak well for them if they weren't hearing "lean-in" in the other ear.
The epilogue is fantastic and came as a great surprise. I’ll resist providing a spoiler – I’m dying to share it – but a great moral is revealed. It had never been Lyons’s intent to discover one. It shows how a simple book, a memoir, a little odd 250-page thing, can threaten a company worth a billion and a half dollars to its core. That they could feel so threatened by this speaks volumes about the culture Lyons describes.
It is obvious from the beginning that the twenty-somethings working at start-up HubSpot do not like Lyons on sight, a “privileged” white man in his early 50s. The need to conform on their part is tremendous, because they are loaded with student debt, and don’t have many options for well-paying jobs. It causes them to fall into a cult-like trance of self-help guru nonsense and corporate-speak. This can be irritating to an intelligent person’s ears – which Lyons has. But their need to belong is intense, and anyone who threatens their sense of self and well-being, even at the expense of economic justice, is regarded as an enemy.
Lyons’s book is hilarious for simply pointing out the obvious, that we’re dealing here in a billion and a half valued company that sells a crappy product. And that this outfit from Cambridge, Massachusetts, typical for any suburban Boston enclave of college graduates (I am well aware of them), is a sham of diversity. Well they’re not completely white. At least there’s the founder, one of two, from Central Asia. He ends up doing what everyone would love to do, make millions of dollars from a relatively small initial investment (500,000 dollars, to be exact, something few of us have), even if that means exploiting countless nameless faces on his way to super-stardom and PowerPoint presentation glamour. Like most of the leaders in this book, he’s more into profiting from self-image than managing people.
Throughout Lyons says he’d stop ridiculing everyone for willfully brainwashed conformity if the product HubSpot sold was actually valuable. It’s not. It’s garbage software to help small businesses run blogs, a sixth-rate one compared to WordPress. College graduates at HubSpot are taking advantage of small business owners who lack the clout to not need the advertising of blogging. Meanwhile they throw parties, eat plenty of candy and are cheery-faced through and through. This is important to bear in mind. Lyons is not anti-corporate but anti-mind control.
As journalism memoir, Lyons’s skill at narration is outstanding. He takes you through a year in a start-up, and by the end of it, you understand how a company is made from top to bottom. It is very impressive the way he handles being laughed at by the young millennials, especially the women who need a mutual support system much more than the men do, who are more into self-delusion and following orders to a tee. Needless to say there are few women in the executive, probably because the women in such a climate aren’t very good at following orders. Ordinarily this would speak well for them if they weren't hearing "lean-in" in the other ear.
The epilogue is fantastic and came as a great surprise. I’ll resist providing a spoiler – I’m dying to share it – but a great moral is revealed. It had never been Lyons’s intent to discover one. It shows how a simple book, a memoir, a little odd 250-page thing, can threaten a company worth a billion and a half dollars to its core. That they could feel so threatened by this speaks volumes about the culture Lyons describes.
January 8, 2021
معمولاً توی صفحات مربوط به بازاریابی دیجیتال و کارآفرینی، از مخاطبین دعوت میشه یه سری افراد رو به عنوان الگوی خودشون درنظر بگیرند که ممکنه در واقعیت [به قول کتاب] یه سری شارلاتان خوششانس باشند. این کتاب به شما کمک میکنه خیلی چیزا رو متوجه بشین.
نویسندهی کتاب، دنیل لاینز، یک روزنامهنگار و نویسندهی وبلاگه که در سن ۵۲ سالگی کارش ُ از دست میده و در نهایت بعد از گشتن دنبال کار پیشنهاد کارکردن توی تیم تولید محتوای هاباسپات، که یه شرکت استارتاپی در حوزهی بازاریابیست ُ قبول میکنه. یکی از دلایل لاینز برای قبول کار اینه که بتونه زمان عرضهی اولیهی هاباسپات از مزایای خرید سهام بهرهببره و پول به جیب بزنه.
ورود لاینز به شرکت، شروع ماجرا و باخبر شدن از پشت پردهی هاباسپات و شرکتهای استارتاپی دیگه مثل هاباسپاته.
مهمترین برداشتی که لاینز از رفتارهای سازمانی این شرکت داره، رویکرد فرقهگونهی مدیران و کارکنان و تقدس بخشیدن به شرکته. تبعیض نژادی، تبعیض سنی بسیار بسیار شدید و عدم شفافیت چیزهای دیگری هستند که لاینز در موردشون حرف میزنه.
مسئلهی بعدی اینه که غالب شرکتهای استارتاپی نه تنها سودده نیستند که ضررده هم هستند، اما با این حال با هیاهو برای هیچ و از طریق جوسازی ارزش سهام خودشون رو بالا میبرند و در واقع حباب درست میکنند و عرضهی اولیه انجام میدهند و بنیانگذاران و سرمایهگذاران اصلی پول بسیار خوبی به جیب میزنند و زمانی که حباب میترکه سرمایهگذاران خرد و کارکنان جزء هستند که باید تاوان پس بدن.
در واقع این کتاب از مسائل زیادی پرده برداری میکنه، از دنیای کثیف و دور زدن قانونی که پشتپرده در حال انجامه. بخش ترسناک موضوع اینجاست، با این که این کتاب بیشتر طنزه و جنبهی خاطرات شخصی داره، افرادی از هاباسپات سعی میکنند با روشهایی که ممکنه هککردن رو هم شامل بشه به نسخهی پیشنویس کتاب دست پیدا کنند.
کتاب خوندنیست و بسیار خوب ترجمه شده، اما ممکنه در حوزهی مطالعاتی مورد علاقهی خیلیها قرار نگیره.
بخونیدش اگه دوستدارید بدونین دقیقاً توی سیلیکون ولی چه خبره، کسانی که به عنوان الگو بهتون معرفی میشن واقعاً کی هستند و اگه به حوزهی استارتاپ علاقمندین.
نویسندهی کتاب، دنیل لاینز، یک روزنامهنگار و نویسندهی وبلاگه که در سن ۵۲ سالگی کارش ُ از دست میده و در نهایت بعد از گشتن دنبال کار پیشنهاد کارکردن توی تیم تولید محتوای هاباسپات، که یه شرکت استارتاپی در حوزهی بازاریابیست ُ قبول میکنه. یکی از دلایل لاینز برای قبول کار اینه که بتونه زمان عرضهی اولیهی هاباسپات از مزایای خرید سهام بهرهببره و پول به جیب بزنه.
ورود لاینز به شرکت، شروع ماجرا و باخبر شدن از پشت پردهی هاباسپات و شرکتهای استارتاپی دیگه مثل هاباسپاته.
مهمترین برداشتی که لاینز از رفتارهای سازمانی این شرکت داره، رویکرد فرقهگونهی مدیران و کارکنان و تقدس بخشیدن به شرکته. تبعیض نژادی، تبعیض سنی بسیار بسیار شدید و عدم شفافیت چیزهای دیگری هستند که لاینز در موردشون حرف میزنه.
مسئلهی بعدی اینه که غالب شرکتهای استارتاپی نه تنها سودده نیستند که ضررده هم هستند، اما با این حال با هیاهو برای هیچ و از طریق جوسازی ارزش سهام خودشون رو بالا میبرند و در واقع حباب درست میکنند و عرضهی اولیه انجام میدهند و بنیانگذاران و سرمایهگذاران اصلی پول بسیار خوبی به جیب میزنند و زمانی که حباب میترکه سرمایهگذاران خرد و کارکنان جزء هستند که باید تاوان پس بدن.
در واقع این کتاب از مسائل زیادی پرده برداری میکنه، از دنیای کثیف و دور زدن قانونی که پشتپرده در حال انجامه. بخش ترسناک موضوع اینجاست، با این که این کتاب بیشتر طنزه و جنبهی خاطرات شخصی داره، افرادی از هاباسپات سعی میکنند با روشهایی که ممکنه هککردن رو هم شامل بشه به نسخهی پیشنویس کتاب دست پیدا کنند.
کتاب خوندنیست و بسیار خوب ترجمه شده، اما ممکنه در حوزهی مطالعاتی مورد علاقهی خیلیها قرار نگیره.
بخونیدش اگه دوستدارید بدونین دقیقاً توی سیلیکون ولی چه خبره، کسانی که به عنوان الگو بهتون معرفی میشن واقعاً کی هستند و اگه به حوزهی استارتاپ علاقمندین.
August 20, 2016
my god, this guy is annoying. i mean, i wasn't expecting to LOVE this book, it was more of a know-thy-enemy move (i live in the SF bay area) and i was curious. but oh. my. god. while the company does sound incredibly frustrating and poorly run and full of nincompoops, it's far worse to hear this guy whine about how he's not free to make creepy comments about his 19-year-old german au pair in public spaces, lest somebody get offended! wahh! hey, did you know this guy used to work at NEWSWEEK?!?! no way! no really, did you know he worked at newsweek? he worked at NEWSWEEK. he'll tell you about 50 more times and it's his main evidence that he deserves nothing but the most undying respect of all these whippersnappers.
i've worked in jobs where i was a bad fit. i get it. it sucks. it taints your whole life. but maybe, maybe, maaaybe you are a tiny bit of the problem too?!
i've worked in jobs where i was a bad fit. i get it. it sucks. it taints your whole life. but maybe, maybe, maaaybe you are a tiny bit of the problem too?!
August 3, 2017
Great storytelling, great insights. Dan Lyons managed to expose many things that are wrong with Silicon Valley in a relatively short book. However, I wouldn't call this book an "entertaining read".
There are many cringe-worthy moments in the book. But it could just be that I'm too close to Silicon Valley for comfort.
There are many cringe-worthy moments in the book. But it could just be that I'm too close to Silicon Valley for comfort.
April 25, 2016
This book was a delightful read and I recommend it to anyone who has ever worked, or known someone who has worked, at a start-up.
March 28, 2017
TLDR:
I didn't find a single thing funny, I find all of it sad.
The book is not a funny critique exposing the worst part of tech startups; it is a mean revenge to a former employer, full of bile against the company and against the people working there.
Where to start?
I'm pretty angry about this book, with the book, and yeah, also with the author. I see the book as a huge missed opportunity to talk about all the issue in the start-up world: ageism, sexism, diversity, culture, the bubble... Yes, I know, Dan go through all of these issues. But he got many of them really wrong (there is a bubble, in my opinion, but the author explanation is mostly wrong) or just lost all moral high ground to talk about those issues: he is the first one judging people because of their age. He get's angry because his new boss is young, he thought that because the guy is young he was someone assistant and should be serving coffee. Really, the author say stuff like this not once, but all the time without seeing any issue in it - and still wants us to feel pity when someone else judge him in base of his gray hair? Sorry but not.
Thing get even worst when the author goes as far as saying that the lobbying from big tech companies to increase the number of H1B visas has nothing to do with shortage of high skill workers in some specific areas, but instead is because immigrants would be payed less than US citiziens, and the ultimate goal of these big tech companies is to reduce salaries by importing this cheap immigrant workforce. Mate, you are one step close from saying "close the borders, US jobs for US people" - and salaries of junior sales roles (where this specific idea takes place) has nothing to do with H1B visas. The author called himself a journalist (and oh my god, he goes on and on about how great and experienced he is at it and all the important things he have done) but cannot do basic research to understand how complex matters works.
Another example: all his ideas about the current tech bubble are basically "all current tech startups are pure bullshit, just people selling un finished products and making shit up, there is no technology anymore". This from someone who enter the marketing department of a marketing company and then went to sales conference. Of course you are going to hear lots of bs and people selling stuff. You didn't take a job at an AI startup, or went to a conference about product design, or data, or a programming language, or VR, or user experience research... right?
The worst part is that the book propose was never to expose the miseries of tech startups, as I thought. It is purely revenge to his former employer AND all the people working there. The books is mean in how it constantly ridicule real people (sometimes not even changing their real names). Sure he is sometimes pointing out some terrible behaviour (the epilogue is an example, but there are many others), but what moral rights have you, when you are writing a book as revenge, trying to kill people's careers?
And, come on! is not that the author does not know anything about company politics, is that he just lack human empathy! The amount of times he ridiculise people (or complain he cannot ridiculise someone), or treat someone like shit, or tell people how to do their jobs, or goes on and on judging someone else... is incredible.
Stay aways from the book, and stay aways from some of the characters in it... including the author.
I didn't find a single thing funny, I find all of it sad.
The book is not a funny critique exposing the worst part of tech startups; it is a mean revenge to a former employer, full of bile against the company and against the people working there.
Where to start?
I'm pretty angry about this book, with the book, and yeah, also with the author. I see the book as a huge missed opportunity to talk about all the issue in the start-up world: ageism, sexism, diversity, culture, the bubble... Yes, I know, Dan go through all of these issues. But he got many of them really wrong (there is a bubble, in my opinion, but the author explanation is mostly wrong) or just lost all moral high ground to talk about those issues: he is the first one judging people because of their age. He get's angry because his new boss is young, he thought that because the guy is young he was someone assistant and should be serving coffee. Really, the author say stuff like this not once, but all the time without seeing any issue in it - and still wants us to feel pity when someone else judge him in base of his gray hair? Sorry but not.
Thing get even worst when the author goes as far as saying that the lobbying from big tech companies to increase the number of H1B visas has nothing to do with shortage of high skill workers in some specific areas, but instead is because immigrants would be payed less than US citiziens, and the ultimate goal of these big tech companies is to reduce salaries by importing this cheap immigrant workforce. Mate, you are one step close from saying "close the borders, US jobs for US people" - and salaries of junior sales roles (where this specific idea takes place) has nothing to do with H1B visas. The author called himself a journalist (and oh my god, he goes on and on about how great and experienced he is at it and all the important things he have done) but cannot do basic research to understand how complex matters works.
Another example: all his ideas about the current tech bubble are basically "all current tech startups are pure bullshit, just people selling un finished products and making shit up, there is no technology anymore". This from someone who enter the marketing department of a marketing company and then went to sales conference. Of course you are going to hear lots of bs and people selling stuff. You didn't take a job at an AI startup, or went to a conference about product design, or data, or a programming language, or VR, or user experience research... right?
The worst part is that the book propose was never to expose the miseries of tech startups, as I thought. It is purely revenge to his former employer AND all the people working there. The books is mean in how it constantly ridicule real people (sometimes not even changing their real names). Sure he is sometimes pointing out some terrible behaviour (the epilogue is an example, but there are many others), but what moral rights have you, when you are writing a book as revenge, trying to kill people's careers?
And, come on! is not that the author does not know anything about company politics, is that he just lack human empathy! The amount of times he ridiculise people (or complain he cannot ridiculise someone), or treat someone like shit, or tell people how to do their jobs, or goes on and on judging someone else... is incredible.
Stay aways from the book, and stay aways from some of the characters in it... including the author.
April 8, 2016
If you are a) over 45
and/or
b) have ever worked for a startup tech or media company
you HAVE to read this book. Its incredibly funny, astonishingly infuriating and an amazingly accurate look at career trajectories for olds in the 21st century. It also provides a very clear description of how VCs and a handful of company executives pillage the funding system for startups to line their own pockets, while convincing young people to work for low salaries and zero job security.
Equally as good: The NYT review, which you can read here: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/06/boo...
and/or
b) have ever worked for a startup tech or media company
you HAVE to read this book. Its incredibly funny, astonishingly infuriating and an amazingly accurate look at career trajectories for olds in the 21st century. It also provides a very clear description of how VCs and a handful of company executives pillage the funding system for startups to line their own pockets, while convincing young people to work for low salaries and zero job security.
Equally as good: The NYT review, which you can read here: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/06/boo...
March 29, 2023
خیلی وقت بود که به کتابی پنج ستاره نداده بودم و خیلی وقت بود که خوندن کتابی اینطور بهم نچسبیده بود و در حقیقت «جیگرم رو خنک نکرده بود». کتاب برای من مثل یک لیوان لیموناد با یخ خرد شده بود توی عصر یه روز تابستونی که از صبحش توی خیابون در رفت و آمد بودم. راستش اصلا انتظار نداشتم اینطور باشه. فکر میکردم مثل خیلی محتواهای دیگه که در مورد شرکتهای استارتآپی و «فضای اکوسیستم» نوشته شده و میشه، درگیر تمجید کلیت این اتمسفر باشه و نهایتاً کمی نقدهای گزندهی مثلاً جسورانه داشته باشه اما هر چی جلوتر رفتم بیشتر سورپرایز شدم.
من شاید فقط چند سال از میانگین سنی آدمها در شرکتهای استارتآپی فاصله دارم و هنوز ۵۴ ساله نشدم و موهای جوگندمی ندارم اما تمام صحبتهای نویسنده رو کلمه به کلمه درک میکردم. در مورد سرسپردگی آدمها، در مورد ارزون بودنشون، در مورد اینکه نهتنها شرکتها هیچ تعهدی به کارمنداشون ندارن (علیرغم اینکه انتظار دارن اونها نهتنها متعهد، بلکه سرسپردهشون باشن) که ترجیح میدن یه مدت ازشون کار بکشن و زمانی که میبینن مهارت و تجربه داره به قیمت کارمندهاشون اضافه میکنه، اونها رو کنار بذارن یا درستتر بگم: فراری بدن!
متأسفانه این فضا فقط هم محدود به استارتآپها یا شرکتهای تک نیست. من در تجربهی قبل از کار در حوزه تک هم با این مسأله مواجه بودم. احتمالاً هر جایی که از نیروی کار جوان و نسبتاً کمتجربه داره استفاده میکنه، میتونه با این حربه به راحتی از آدمها بیگاری بکشه. همون بردهداری مدرن که نویسنده هم توی کتاب یه جا ازش صحبت میکنه. یکی از چندین جایی از کتاب که برای من مثل همون قلپ لیموناد بود.
خریدن کتابهای نشر اطراف برای من همیشه بدون ریسک بودن. میدونستم که احتمالاً از کلیت محتوا خوشم خواهد اومد. حالا اگر موضوع هم به بخشی از زندگیم مرتبط باشه و کتاب ترجمهی روان و درخشانی هم داشته باشه (همونطوری که در مورد این کتاب بود)، چه بهتر!
خوندن کتاب رو به هر کسی که به نحوی توی شرکتی با جمعیت بیشتر از ۵۰، ۶۰ نفر و با نیروهای اغلب کم سن و سال کار کرده/میکنه یا کسایی که توی شرکتهای حوزه تک فعالن بهشدت پیشنهاد میکنم. این اتفاقیه که در حین و بعد از خوندن کتاب براتون میافته:
چند روزی زیر لب میخندید و هی میگید عههههه، پس سیلیکون ولی هم اینطوریه! ولی بعدش ذره ذره غم فرا میگیرهتون و فکر میکنید که چه چیزهایی هست که دوست نداشتید ازش خبر داشته باشید. یا شاید هم خوبه که خبر داشته باشید، اما کار چندانی راجع بهش از دستتون/مون برنمیاد. مثل خیلی خیلی خیلی چیزهای دیگه نمیدونم دونستنش بهتره یا ندونستنش.
من شاید فقط چند سال از میانگین سنی آدمها در شرکتهای استارتآپی فاصله دارم و هنوز ۵۴ ساله نشدم و موهای جوگندمی ندارم اما تمام صحبتهای نویسنده رو کلمه به کلمه درک میکردم. در مورد سرسپردگی آدمها، در مورد ارزون بودنشون، در مورد اینکه نهتنها شرکتها هیچ تعهدی به کارمنداشون ندارن (علیرغم اینکه انتظار دارن اونها نهتنها متعهد، بلکه سرسپردهشون باشن) که ترجیح میدن یه مدت ازشون کار بکشن و زمانی که میبینن مهارت و تجربه داره به قیمت کارمندهاشون اضافه میکنه، اونها رو کنار بذارن یا درستتر بگم: فراری بدن!
متأسفانه این فضا فقط هم محدود به استارتآپها یا شرکتهای تک نیست. من در تجربهی قبل از کار در حوزه تک هم با این مسأله مواجه بودم. احتمالاً هر جایی که از نیروی کار جوان و نسبتاً کمتجربه داره استفاده میکنه، میتونه با این حربه به راحتی از آدمها بیگاری بکشه. همون بردهداری مدرن که نویسنده هم توی کتاب یه جا ازش صحبت میکنه. یکی از چندین جایی از کتاب که برای من مثل همون قلپ لیموناد بود.
خریدن کتابهای نشر اطراف برای من همیشه بدون ریسک بودن. میدونستم که احتمالاً از کلیت محتوا خوشم خواهد اومد. حالا اگر موضوع هم به بخشی از زندگیم مرتبط باشه و کتاب ترجمهی روان و درخشانی هم داشته باشه (همونطوری که در مورد این کتاب بود)، چه بهتر!
خوندن کتاب رو به هر کسی که به نحوی توی شرکتی با جمعیت بیشتر از ۵۰، ۶۰ نفر و با نیروهای اغلب کم سن و سال کار کرده/میکنه یا کسایی که توی شرکتهای حوزه تک فعالن بهشدت پیشنهاد میکنم. این اتفاقیه که در حین و بعد از خوندن کتاب براتون میافته:
چند روزی زیر لب میخندید و هی میگید عههههه، پس سیلیکون ولی هم اینطوریه! ولی بعدش ذره ذره غم فرا میگیرهتون و فکر میکنید که چه چیزهایی هست که دوست نداشتید ازش خبر داشته باشید. یا شاید هم خوبه که خبر داشته باشید، اما کار چندانی راجع بهش از دستتون/مون برنمیاد. مثل خیلی خیلی خیلی چیزهای دیگه نمیدونم دونستنش بهتره یا ندونستنش.
January 5, 2023
کتاب دربارهی پشتصحنهی ادارهی یک استارتاپ آمریکایی به نام هاباسپات است و اینکه در پشت این ظاهر شاد و سرخوشی که معمول فضاهای استارتاپی است چه واقعیتی نهفته است.
من بیش از همه توجهم به شیوهی سودآورشدن استارتاپها جلب میشد. فکر میکردم بعد از اینهمه بندبازی و شلنگتختهانداختن مدیران شرکت -که در کتاب حسابی بهش پرداخته میشه-، وقتی سهام استارتاپ به بازار بورس عرضه میشه، سهامداران اصلی سهمشان را میفروشند و فلنگ را میبندند. اما گویا زندگی روی بند آنقدر استرس ندارد (یا آن آدمهایی که روی بند زندگی میکنند از جنس ما صاحبان اخلاق کارمندی نیستند) و سهامداران اصلی حتی بعد از عرضهی اولیه همچنان به نمایشهای خودشان برای سرپا-نگهداشتن شرکت ادامه میدهند. شرکت هاباسپات، حتی بعد از اینکه این کتاب نحوهی ادارهی عجیبوغریبش را با انتشارش در سال ۲۰۱۶ برملا میکنه، به رشد قیمتش ادامه میده و از حدود یکمیلیارد در هنگام عرضهی اولیه به حدود دهمیلیارد در سالهای اخیرتر میرسه.
یعنی مهم اینه که چطور ظاهر را همیشه و درهمهحال حفظ کنی. اینکه در واقعیت چه اتفاقی میافته و شرکت سودآور نباشه مهم نیست.
***
از وقتی در اسنپ کار میکنم، به شیوهی قدیمی امتیازدهیام فکر میکنم که چه سختگیرانه امتیاز پنج میدادم. الان دیگه دل سختگیری ندارم.
اما ترجمه واقعاً روان و خوانا و «فارسی» بود و امتیاز پنج برای ترجمه حقش است.
متن هم روان و جاذب است و از پشتپردهی استارتاپها و واقعیت مخفی در پس خلمشنگی ظاهری آنها اطلاعات خوبی ارائه میکند.
من بیش از همه توجهم به شیوهی سودآورشدن استارتاپها جلب میشد. فکر میکردم بعد از اینهمه بندبازی و شلنگتختهانداختن مدیران شرکت -که در کتاب حسابی بهش پرداخته میشه-، وقتی سهام استارتاپ به بازار بورس عرضه میشه، سهامداران اصلی سهمشان را میفروشند و فلنگ را میبندند. اما گویا زندگی روی بند آنقدر استرس ندارد (یا آن آدمهایی که روی بند زندگی میکنند از جنس ما صاحبان اخلاق کارمندی نیستند) و سهامداران اصلی حتی بعد از عرضهی اولیه همچنان به نمایشهای خودشان برای سرپا-نگهداشتن شرکت ادامه میدهند. شرکت هاباسپات، حتی بعد از اینکه این کتاب نحوهی ادارهی عجیبوغریبش را با انتشارش در سال ۲۰۱۶ برملا میکنه، به رشد قیمتش ادامه میده و از حدود یکمیلیارد در هنگام عرضهی اولیه به حدود دهمیلیارد در سالهای اخیرتر میرسه.
یعنی مهم اینه که چطور ظاهر را همیشه و درهمهحال حفظ کنی. اینکه در واقعیت چه اتفاقی میافته و شرکت سودآور نباشه مهم نیست.
***
از وقتی در اسنپ کار میکنم، به شیوهی قدیمی امتیازدهیام فکر میکنم که چه سختگیرانه امتیاز پنج میدادم. الان دیگه دل سختگیری ندارم.
اما ترجمه واقعاً روان و خوانا و «فارسی» بود و امتیاز پنج برای ترجمه حقش است.
متن هم روان و جاذب است و از پشتپردهی استارتاپها و واقعیت مخفی در پس خلمشنگی ظاهری آنها اطلاعات خوبی ارائه میکند.
October 8, 2024
پس این شِتی که تا گردن توش غرقیم مختص ما نیست و وارداتیه. فضاهای به ظاهر کولی که توش پایهایترین اصول ارتباطات انسانی به رسمیت شناخته نمیشه، سرتاپاش تبعیضه، مدیرهاش هیچی از مدیریت کردن آدما نمیدونن ولی ادعاشون ماتحت آسمان را دریده. زیبا بود؛ توصیه میکنم که بخونین.
April 10, 2016
There's a lot to be said for what you gain in experience, but I worry a lot about how my age will, over time, affect my hiring attractiveness as my career progresses. Dan Lyons does little to dispel this fear and in fact confirms it: In Silicon Valley specifically, ageism isn't so much a practice as it is a value, and the social contract that once existed between companies and their employees no longer exists. What's more, a great startup is now valued more for how hype-worthy it is than for its actual ability to demonstrate sustainable growth and a long-term interest in users themselves. He points out that this is at least one reason why the wealth gap is growing between workers, and executives and investors: The game is rigged that way, and we've all bought in. It also incentivises building businesses using young, cheap workers, which means there's little to no immediate incentive to change this.
I think these are all things that we know, but what makes me sad is how readily and gladly we accepted this and moved on. I don't know what the alternative is any longer; a setback to how exponentially more quickly the world is moving is that it's so much harder to backtrack when we realise we've made a collective mistake.
A French tech journalist once told me there's a key difference between how Americans see their startups, and how the French do, and it affects everything from policy-making to investment strategy: American society fundamentally believes that startups have a community responsibility and can be helpful, should be helpful. French society is inherently suspicious of business, larger or small.
This was a cool anecdote, but I thought about it repeatedly while reading this book. I believe that what he said is true; what's sad is that we perhaps grant American startups a lot of benefit of doubt based on our assumption of its sense of community responsibility—not just to social causes, but specifically to the well-being of employees, to advancing diversity, and to protecting clients whose data and money flows so freely into your coffers—which may more often be lip service than conviction. We've slipped into a world where abstractions are enough. (To be fair, startups aren't reflections of small business at large, but they are certainly the most visible and most disruptive in media today.)
There are silver linings: Despite his regret choosing to work at Hubspot, Lyons is a strong journalist, an adaptable employee (despite Chernov's insistence to the contrary) and, fundamentally, somebody others trust, and his career has evolved in ways even he didn't expect. So even if the tech world is filled with bro-grammers and ageists, there is some comfort in remembering this other truth we often forget: Most of what we'll live, we can't plan, because there's no way for us to know what's coming. Our lives are spent planting seeds for fruits we won't recognise for years. And I liked this a lot. It was like a hug.
Anyway, good book. And I love Silicon Valley!
I think these are all things that we know, but what makes me sad is how readily and gladly we accepted this and moved on. I don't know what the alternative is any longer; a setback to how exponentially more quickly the world is moving is that it's so much harder to backtrack when we realise we've made a collective mistake.
A French tech journalist once told me there's a key difference between how Americans see their startups, and how the French do, and it affects everything from policy-making to investment strategy: American society fundamentally believes that startups have a community responsibility and can be helpful, should be helpful. French society is inherently suspicious of business, larger or small.
This was a cool anecdote, but I thought about it repeatedly while reading this book. I believe that what he said is true; what's sad is that we perhaps grant American startups a lot of benefit of doubt based on our assumption of its sense of community responsibility—not just to social causes, but specifically to the well-being of employees, to advancing diversity, and to protecting clients whose data and money flows so freely into your coffers—which may more often be lip service than conviction. We've slipped into a world where abstractions are enough. (To be fair, startups aren't reflections of small business at large, but they are certainly the most visible and most disruptive in media today.)
There are silver linings: Despite his regret choosing to work at Hubspot, Lyons is a strong journalist, an adaptable employee (despite Chernov's insistence to the contrary) and, fundamentally, somebody others trust, and his career has evolved in ways even he didn't expect. So even if the tech world is filled with bro-grammers and ageists, there is some comfort in remembering this other truth we often forget: Most of what we'll live, we can't plan, because there's no way for us to know what's coming. Our lives are spent planting seeds for fruits we won't recognise for years. And I liked this a lot. It was like a hug.
Anyway, good book. And I love Silicon Valley!
April 10, 2016
A world full of douchebags, brainwashed dummies, bullshit artists, and "fake, fake, fake!!!" enthusiasm is the HubSpot that Lyons describes in Disrupted. The characters are memorable, and real, and sad in many ways, but also entertaining because Lyons, you get the feeling, has a cynical sense of humour about life and its cohabitants.
Outside of the hilarious depiction of the cultish world at HubSpot, this book is important because it outlines some of the major issues in Silicon Valley.
- Overinvestment
- Style over substance
- Snakeoil merchant CEOs (and investors)
- Unethical hiring practices
- Hypocrisy
While he does paint a scathing portrait of the day to day life at HubSpot, the 'Start-Up Bubble' part of the title is more telling of Lyons' message, and indeed it's important.
A company can foster whatever 'kooky' internal cultures it wants, it can sell 'growth' and 'revenue' as more relevant than profit, it can gamble on its IPO and sucker thousands of public investors into buying shares, but at the end of the day, it's downright irresponsible to propagate unsustainable growth in an already fragile economy. Essentially, this is the point Dan Lyons drives across, using multiple examples from the Silicon Valley ecosystem. Both the start-ups and their investors are complicit.
The book probably went to press before he could make a note of the recent slowdown in VC funding. A number of stories have started to circulate about the difficulty founders are having in raising money while tech bubble stories continue to get published on a regular basis. I'm sure Disrupted will help these types of articles grow...exponentially.
Outside of the hilarious depiction of the cultish world at HubSpot, this book is important because it outlines some of the major issues in Silicon Valley.
- Overinvestment
- Style over substance
- Snakeoil merchant CEOs (and investors)
- Unethical hiring practices
- Hypocrisy
While he does paint a scathing portrait of the day to day life at HubSpot, the 'Start-Up Bubble' part of the title is more telling of Lyons' message, and indeed it's important.
A company can foster whatever 'kooky' internal cultures it wants, it can sell 'growth' and 'revenue' as more relevant than profit, it can gamble on its IPO and sucker thousands of public investors into buying shares, but at the end of the day, it's downright irresponsible to propagate unsustainable growth in an already fragile economy. Essentially, this is the point Dan Lyons drives across, using multiple examples from the Silicon Valley ecosystem. Both the start-ups and their investors are complicit.
The book probably went to press before he could make a note of the recent slowdown in VC funding. A number of stories have started to circulate about the difficulty founders are having in raising money while tech bubble stories continue to get published on a regular basis. I'm sure Disrupted will help these types of articles grow...exponentially.
May 11, 2016
How many of us wish for the freedom to write a ranty exposé about our workplace? Most people wouldn't dare, for fear of getting blacklisted and destroying their careers, or for fear of getting sued (or harassed) by billionaire CEOs. Lyons went ahead and did it. He was financially unsettled enough to endure a job he hated, yet he also had enough in the way of connections and outside goodwill to find escape routes when he needed them, and lawyers when he needed them.
4.5 stars. This is great satire, a painfully honest fish-out-of-water story, and a fresh perspective on the economic side of the tech industry.
My only problem is that Lyons is naive about office environments in general. He keeps expressing shock at a corporate culture where people wear Halloween costumes for Halloween, and use Google Calendar invites to set up meetings. This really isn't shocking to anyone who's held a real honest-to-goodness office job in the U.S. during the last decade, especially if that job is in a major city. He's sensitive about coming across like an old fogey, but to me, he comes across a little bit fogeyish. I rolled my eyes when he described how shocked he was when his coworkers saw his private Facebook post. Nothing on Facebook is private, and anyone who works in tech should know that.
For the most part, however, I found his criticisms spot on. There is a stunning amount of overhype and hyperbole and hypocrisy in the tech world. I was laughing along with him for most of this book. The frat culture. The lack of diversity. The grandiose claim about making the world a better place. The wealth disparity. The blind investments. Everything he points out is sadly true.
4.5 stars. This is great satire, a painfully honest fish-out-of-water story, and a fresh perspective on the economic side of the tech industry.
My only problem is that Lyons is naive about office environments in general. He keeps expressing shock at a corporate culture where people wear Halloween costumes for Halloween, and use Google Calendar invites to set up meetings. This really isn't shocking to anyone who's held a real honest-to-goodness office job in the U.S. during the last decade, especially if that job is in a major city. He's sensitive about coming across like an old fogey, but to me, he comes across a little bit fogeyish. I rolled my eyes when he described how shocked he was when his coworkers saw his private Facebook post. Nothing on Facebook is private, and anyone who works in tech should know that.
For the most part, however, I found his criticisms spot on. There is a stunning amount of overhype and hyperbole and hypocrisy in the tech world. I was laughing along with him for most of this book. The frat culture. The lack of diversity. The grandiose claim about making the world a better place. The wealth disparity. The blind investments. Everything he points out is sadly true.
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